Between Southern rock and a hard place

Aarik Danielsen

Thursday

Aug 30, 2012 at 12:01 AMAug 30, 2012 at 1:00 PM

Hailing from a state known for its rich tradition of equestrian sport, Black Stone Cherry might be emerging as a dark horse in the race to save modern hard rock from its basest inclinations and post-grunge pandering.

Second-generation Kentucky rockers — drummer John Fred Young's daddy helped found the Kentucky Headhunters — the quartet still relies a bit too much on knucklehead lyrics and amped-up antics, but a refusal to be pigeonholed and a desire to embrace its roots set the band off from some of its contemporaries.

The group clearly emulates the driving rock of Dixieland father figures such as Lynyrd Skynyrd and Marshall Tucker Band but has taken these Southern-by-the-grace-of-God inclinations and merged them with the more devilish, anthemic tendencies of modern hard-rock bands. Black Stone Cherry's comfort level with various strands of rock music has helped the band fit into a variety of sounds and settings and allowed the group to tour with such disparate acts as Nickelback and Motörhead.

"In a genre that's grown more and more homogenous as its radio dominance has spread, a band like Black Stone Cherry is kind of refreshing, bringing something a little dirty and grimy to a sound that's usually so polished," AllMusic's Gregory Heaney wrote. "And while it's definitely more Kid Rock than Lynyrd Skynyrd, it's got a whole lot more country than some of their contemporaries are bringing to the table."

The band's third and most recent release, 2011's "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," is a stout effort that strategically scuffs and pierces the otherwise shiny suit of radio-rock armor. Made in league with uber-producer Howard Benson (Daughtry, P.O.D., Theory of a Deadman, Creed), the album is an amalgam of grinding guitars, arena-rock shredding and huge hooks. Frontman Chris Robertson's vocals are marked by a rare versatility — on high-octane, muscular rock tracks, he approaches the sort of raspy, Kid Rock-esque rebel yell that Heaney alluded to; on more mid-tempo cuts and slow-burning ballads, his weathered voice lends an air of regret and yearning.

Black Stone Cherry won't quite set the world ablaze artistically, but the band has added shades of nuance to a style that has remained fairly content to traffic in basic black and white. And, given the state of modern rock, that's no little feat.

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